Thursday, October 20, 2016

Holy Idea!






I am an avid dreamer by nature and ideas are constantly evolving in my mind. Some of them are genius, others are rather embarrassing or idiotic. I am the kind of person who lets her thoughts foster into perfectly achievable ideas and can spend hours entertaining a business opportunity or a grandiose social project, all while comfortably visualizing the resulting success and fame.

I came up with the perfect solution for engaging unexperienced entrepreneurs with the soon to retire small business owners, creating a sustainable model that will give young entrepreneurs the experience needed and give the small business owners the peace of mind of knowing that their business will be in good and "trained" hands. I designed an app helping drivers avoid moose and deer collisions by creating a geo-enabled notifications platform. I conceptualized a senior citizens home for people with alzheimer.

These would have been great success or even failure stories if the ideas were actually executed. The truth is, all these concepts were ideas that never left the ideation stage. These AMAZING ideas...Alright! GOOD ideas, are swinging at a stage where most ideas end up. Many people would wake up every morning with 10 ideas. These ideas can be as simple as a tool to help improve one's organization or starting a diary. Any idea can change something/someone if not the world, but only and only if it is paired with a successful execution and a tiny bit of luck or what some might call "External Factors". The point is until an idea is launched, it is worth absolutely zero, nada, nothing! To put it in terms that everyone would understand...The real value of an idea is $0. The concept of a Million Dollar Idea is completely inaccurate and delusive. Many aspiring entrepreneurs get too overprotective of their ideas and fail to see the value of a successful execution, and that can be translated in their communication to the investors or future partners. The failure to acknowledge the absolute necessity of a great team or individual ready to take the idea out of the ideation stage and launch, and the external factors that will drive the idea to success is what kills every great idea.  There is a reason most VCs would refuse to sign an NDA, simply because they know the value of an idea. They know that coming up with the idea is a trivial part of the process of creating change and impact. Taking action towards an effective execution is the most important factor leading to results. 

You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90 percent of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen. And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product.
-Steve Jobs

If you are the creative type and have a million ideas that never saw the light of day, share them because their value won't multiply over time and certainly not while deeply buried in your head. If you have the energy to execute but lack creativity, there are a million online resources giving ideas for free or use the many idea generation methods.